


Dead Hearts

by extraordinarywizard



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Death, Ghosts, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Long-Distance Friendship, M/M, Pining, Sadstuck, Slight Ableist Language, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:55:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25926247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extraordinarywizard/pseuds/extraordinarywizard
Summary: Dave never learned why John stopped coming online on Pesterchum all those years ago. Until John shows up in his apartment, with unwanted answers.
Relationships: John Egbert/Dave Strider
Comments: 16
Kudos: 56





	1. Chapter 1

John dropped off the face of their Pesterchum chats together years ago, and Dave never learned why. It had haunted him since he was 18, the fact that he never knew why John left. Their last conversation played over and over in his head, the words they last wrote to each other flashing before his eyes while trying to fall asleep. He had worried himself sick for days and weeks and months and years, though its intensity had slowly dampened over the course of time.

He always had the underlying fear that he had said something wrong, and John had decided to dip out of their friendship altogether as a result. That didn’t make him feel particularly good about himself. 

Dave walked down the night street, stepping into the blinding city lights of the lamp posts, stepping into the empty darkness, with a steady beat. Heading home from a late-night DJ gig, he was exhausted. He longed to sling himself onto the bed and clonk out for the next 14 hours.

Despite the black night surrounding him, he kept on the sunglasses. It blocked out the shadows lurking at the edges, in the corners of his eyes.

He had been able to see them for as long as he could remember: the opaque silhouettes of people past. Dave understood that for the most part they weren’t aware of where nor what they were. Growing up, he had often tried to have conversations with them as he didn’t realize they were different until they didn’t respond, and when other people around him reacted in confusion and even outright anger at Dave for “dragging playing pretend too far”. He didn’t realize back then how what he was doing was wrong, but damn if he wasn’t told that time and time again, othered and straight-up abused for his “behavior”. Ostracized for acting “crazy” by his peers.

Sometimes, the shadows spoke back. Those were usually less transparent, which made it much harder to tell whether they were ghosts. Sometimes it’d be just a normal conversation like “excuse me, where’s the closest bus stop” and “hey kid, wanna buy some weed”, seemingly unaware they were dead, happily so. Other times it went into deeply disturbing directions; those were conversations with shadows aware of their condition, actively seeking him out to tell him when they realize he could see and hear them. He did his best to forget the details they’d tell him, though they involuntarily resurfaced when Dave tried to sleep, blending horribly together with his mixed guilt and anxiety and sadness over losing contact with his best friend. 

Today’s shadows had been relatively shy, he had walked through a few in the club but nothing happened other than a slight shiver down his spine, and the shadows themselves hadn’t noticed. He spent a whole lot of time avoiding their eye contact, mostly out of habit at this point as the sunglasses helped avoid their eyes. Having eye contact signalized to them that he could see them, and they’d approach him. Normally it would be friendly banter that ended awkwardly if Dave wasn’t alone so he couldn’t reply without receiving strange looks, and other times the shadows would be out looking for a fight. The ones aware of their condition often changed to a twisted demeanor, demanding to be heard, attempting to physically assault anybody that knew of them. Dave suspected it was out of fear and confusion, likely mixed in with an already insufferable personality. Cause of death seemed to be a factor as well, as the most violent of ghosts he encountered were victims of violent acts themselves. They never successfully assaulted him, however; though they could pick up items for a short time and interact with objects like chairs like normal, shadows were incapable of touching something living. He knew and was able to deal with this now, but boy if that hadn’t terrified him to the bone as a child. 

His tall concrete apartment building came to view through the darkness, and Dave picked up the pace. He was getting antsy being in this much darkness, thinking every chill he felt was his walking through somebody there. 

Finally at the building’s steps, he locked himself in, the front door locking reliably behind him, and clumsily sprinted up the stairs to his apartment on the eighth floor, his shoes clacking coldly against the linoleum as he went. The sudden bright light of the lamps that turned on by the movement made his tired mind dizzy, feeling like he was intoxicated. Which, to be fair, he was. 

He made his way indoors in his small one-bedroom apartment, locked the door’s many bolts his landlord had gotten installed by his request, and dropped his bag with some of his equipment from earlier hard on the floor. He didn’t bother to make sure it didn’t get damaged, he was too tired to. He ripped off his jacket along with his sunglasses and just left it all haphazardly on the floor and the couch. Stumbling into bed, he fell asleep immediately as his head hit his pillow.

The sound, dreamless sleep didn’t last long, however. Dave woke up with a jolt as he heard a noise coming from somewhere in the living room. He had fallen asleep on top of the sheets with all clothes still on, so he only slugged to his feet and, in equal exhaustion and alertness, slowly stepped out his bedroom door to look around the corner to the living room. Had he somehow forgotten to lock his front door? He drowsily tried to think back to a few hours ago, and recounted that even though he couldn’t remember locking, he likely had done it out of sheer habit and autopilot anyway. 

He peeked past the corner and caught a silhouette rummaging in the dark living room. He swallowed. He couldn’t be sure in this lighting, but he got the anxious feeling whoever was there was not _there_ , judging by how they picked things up then dropped them. He had purposefully sought out an apartment in a building that was recently built, so he wouldn’t need to deal with uninvited stragglers, as shadows rarely ventured where they hadn’t spent time alive. He’d lived in this apartment for roughly a year and had yet to have any issues. Until now, he guessed bleakly. 

He couldn’t see his front door from this angle, though, if the locks really were broken, he couldn’t rely on the invader having an incorporeal form. If this was another human in his home, then so be it. He slowly reached for the baseball bat he kept by his closet next to him and stepped quietly out towards the living room to not alert the intruder. He didn’t have any swords; he had left them all behind when he moved out. Man, he hoped his door wasn’t completely wrecked.

He raised the bat. “Hey! Get the fuck out before I call the cops!”

The person jumped and dropped whatever they were holding as they raised their hands. “Don’t shoot!”

Dave ignored that, smirking that they thought he was holding a gun. He stepped closer. “Get the hell out of my apartment.” 

The sun began to make its first signs of rising in the living room window, hazily illuminating the room. Whoever had broken into his apartment seemed to be a boy, probably a few years younger than him, but he couldn’t see much else. He didn’t reply.

Dave turned to look at the state of his front door now that he was better positioned to do so. “I said, get ou—” 

He froze. The locks were still just the way he had left them, untouched by others’ hands. He looked back at the boy in his living room, his heart beating in his throat. 

“Wait,” the boy said, slowly lowering his arms. “You see me.”

His heart raced faster. Fuck, a shadow aware of its condition. Inside his apartment. He didn’t move and didn’t answer, only stared at the silhouette speaking to him. 

“You see me,” the boy repeated, audibly relieved. “Dave, I can’t believe I finally found you, and you can _see_ me!”

“What are you talking about?” Dave raised his voice, deeply unnerved, “how do you know my name?”

The sun lit the room further, the shadow’s traits coming more to view. Black hair, squared glasses framing bright blue eyes. A face he hadn’t been able to forget no matter how hard he had tried.

He let the baseball bat slip through his fingers, and it fell uselessly on the floor. 

Air caught in his throat. “John?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you enjoy! future chapters will be posted every weekend, either saturday or sunday.


	2. Chapter 2

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering ghostyTrickster  [GT] at 2014-04-28 -- 20:06

TG: hey man sup  
GT: hi dave!  
TG: do you have time to talk rn  
GT: not really, sorry  
GT: about to head out with dad  
TG: oh shit right you told me the other day  
TG: what are you doing today again  
GT: dad’s taking me to the local drive in theater to see con air  
GT: it’s gonna be so. sick.  
TG: is that genuinely still your favorite movie  
GT: yes. yes it is.  
TG: i remember you hated it for a while and said poe sucked total ass  
GT: no man! never happened. cameron poe is the best cinematic character  
GT: con air is a masterpiece  
TG: jesus fuck  
GT: hello humming bird  
GT: i meant to get a hair cut  
GT: i got a present for you casey  
TG: okay stop  
TG: i actually remembered and only asked so you would embarrass yourself by saying con fucking air is your favorite movie  
TG: but now i am the one embarrassed because i know what all this is and what the next line is  
TG: i hate it thanks  
GT: you’re welcome dave  
GT: (just as planned)  
GT: (hehehehe)  
TG: fuck  
TG: youre indoctrinating me  
TG: making me join your screwed up nic cage cult  
TG: im boarding the airplane a prisoner with a gun to my head  
TG: your finger hovering over the trigger  
GT: i have turned you over to my side  
GT: join me.  
TG: no thanks  
GT: you have no choice at this point, you’re already over half way there  
TG: urgh  
TG: anyway do you still have time  
GT: yeah just a bit  
TG: alright im gonna ramble real quick  
TG: so  
TG: dude  
TG: i literally cant stop thinking about graduation  
TG: and moving out  
TG: and college  
TG: honestly  
TG: i am so goddamn excited to live with you john  
TG: we only see each other in person like once a year at most  
TG: imagine every day  
GT: that is too powerful of an image  
TG: it is  
GT: i’m very excited too!  
GT: only a few months away dude!!  
TG: so  
TG: theres something related to that i want to talk to you about  
TG: its fine you cant rn since like  
TG: it will be a lot  
TG: some stuff ive wanted to say for a while  
TG: important stuff  
GT: okay.  
TG: so tomorrow then  
GT: yeah we’ll talk tomorrow!  
GT: gotta go now, dad’s waiting in the car and pesterchum runs like ass when i’m not on home wifi  
TG: alright  
TG: have fun ogling sweaty sleeveless nic cage on the big screen loser  
GT: oh i will enjoy the hell out of it!  
TG: goodbye hummingbird  
GT: hahaha see ya later!

ghostyTrickster  [GT] ceased pestering turntechGodhead  [TG] at 2014-04-28 -- 20:21

Dave closed out of Pesterchum and opened up one of his projects he’d been working on lately in his audio program. He smiled to himself. He had meant to complete this _I Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing/How Do I Live_ remix and mashup before John’s birthday, which had been a little over two weeks ago; it had taken longer than he expected for the remixes to turn out the way he wanted before he had decided to mash them up together. It was the cheesiest shit he had ever worked on, but he was proud to say he was excited to send the file to him sometime this week. If everything went well tomorrow, that is. He glanced at one of the Polaroid photos he’d tacked to the wall of them together on John’s 18th and smiled, feeling warm and fuzzy.

He was relieved it had ended up not being today, he had gotten too worked up and anxious to be prepared and procrastinated all day to cope with it. When he could’ve easily messaged John earlier in the day, he instead had waited until an exact time John would be too busy to talk. He knew it was idiotic of him to do that, but he couldn’t help it. 

Dave worked on his piece, blasting the music on the speakers in his room to immerse himself when Bro came in without knocking on the door.

“Dave, turn that shit down. I’m filming and the mic keeps picking it up.”

He jumped and reluctantly turned away from the Mac screen. Bro was wearing only his bathrobe.

“Fine,” he replied, avoiding the look he sent him behind his stupid pointy sunglasses. He demonstrably pulled out his headphones from his desk drawer, plugged them in and turned his attention back to his gift to John. He was grateful to have the headphones plugged in now; he didn’t quite want to hear whatever Bro was “directing” through the paper apartment walls whenever he paused his music. He couldn’t fucking wait to leave this place and go live with John at college in Washington. He was restlessly waiting for tomorrow after John would be home from school so they could talk.

That night, after nearly completing his mashup, he went to bed giddy with mixed emotions, listening to a piano arrangement on his iPod John had made of one of Dave’s original songs for his birthday two years ago, nervous for tomorrow’s school day as he always was due to the numerous shadows lingering in the halls, and nervous for his conversation with John, his skin electric in excitement. 

On most days, they’d send each other small messages on Pesterchum throughout their school days, random comments on something their teachers said, a stupid thing a classmate did, things like that. Not every day was like this, Dave knew, sometimes one or both had busy days, but it still made him overthink. He heard nothing from John while he was at school, and he tried to ignore the lack of communication and what it could mean. His stomach did somersaults from the thoughts, making him sick with nerves. 

Dave got home from school and locked himself in his bedroom. Bro wasn’t home yet from wherever the fuck he went during the day, but he locked the door to be safe. He could be a pain to be around, figuratively, and sometimes literally. It was worse when Dave was younger, since throughout his teen years he learned what to do and what not to do around Bro. He learned not to reference the fact he saw ghosts, just pretend it had been a phase and wasn’t still very much an ongoing thing in his life. Bro never believed him, like that time when he hadn’t been able to stop crying when their nice elderly neighbor who sometimes babysat him had died, and he met her shadow long before they were told the news. Or the time Dave had a severe panic attack in elementary school, when he had believed a shadow was attacking him, and Bro had needed to come pick him up. That fear had caused him to miss school; now he was a year behind everyone his age. Bro firmly thought he was doing it all to embarrass him, to get back at him somehow. Dave had thought maybe Bro would send him to therapists, thinking he was hallucinating and delusional, but Bro never did; he thought the most helpful tool was to beat it out of him, then later ignore it.

Now, Dave just pretended nothing was wrong; it had all been a strange childhood phase; he had just had a wild imagination, _kids, right?_ He held on, knowing he would eventually get out of there, after graduation. He was still labelled an outcast in high school, as most of his classmates still clearly remembered his breakdowns throughout elementary and middle school, but he didn’t give a fuck about that anymore. People still gave him shit, but he knew he was getting out of there. After graduation. He clung to his agreement with John like a lifeline. He’d get away from Bro and the others eventually, and it was getting closer with every day that passed.

He fucked around on his phone while sitting by his desk and checked the time multiple times a minute, waiting for when John would be home from school in his time zone. He was too agitated to focus on homework, his thoughts bounced around too much.

At a snail’s pace, the time John was usually home on Tuesdays arrived, and Dave looked closely on his Pesterchum, expecting a popup anytime telling him that John was logged in. 

An hour passed. Maybe he was just busy with homework, or his dad made him get some chores done. 

Another two hours passed. Okay, what was happening? Why wasn’t John online yet? He had promised to come on, hadn’t he? He couldn’t have forgotten about it.

Dave paced around in his room, his anxiety twisting and spiraling into a panic that spread through every limb, locking his heart and lungs in a cage of thorny vines. Where the fuck was John? He reread their earlier messages numerous times, they had agreed to speak today. It was near midnight in Texas now, it was soon no longer “tomorrow” for Dave. Where was John? Why wasn’t he online? He couldn’t just text him ordinarily to check on him, they’d never seen the need in exchanging phone numbers when they so easily could communicate on Pesterchum.

Another hour later, he gave up, though not logging out of Pesterchum in case John came on after all. He had completely forgotten about dinner, so he ate whatever snacks he kept in his closet and flopped on the bed to force himself to fall asleep, in desperation to do _anything_ but wait aimlessly and let his thoughts run wild. 

The next morning, he woke up with a cleared mind. He settled that John’s power had probably gotten knocked out. Pesterchum on John’s phone barely worked when he only had data to go by, after all. Dave had told him numerous times to switch to a newer version of Pesterchum so it would run better, but he never listened. This had happened before, so Dave assumed this was the case again. He told himself he had no need to freak out, this likely had a perfectly fine explanation and John would be back soon.

A week later, John was still radio silent. His “last seen” on Pesterchum was still listed as April 28th 08:21pm. Was John ghosting him? Had he realized what Dave had been meaning to say, and didn’t want anything of it? A rock sunk in Dave’s stomach, scraping his insides. He had no idea what could happen to their plans to study together now. If John stayed away for longer, those plans would never see daylight. He had no mutual friends with John, long-distance or otherwise, he couldn’t ask them if he was around or talked to them about him. If he were honest with himself, he had no other friends than John. He didn’t know what to do if they stopped being friends.

A month passed, and his worry consumed his very being. He tried to find out if anything had happened, anything at all. He scoured local newspapers from where John lived, but he found no events that could imply something about John’s safety. John wasn’t on Facebook, and his dad wasn’t, so he couldn’t find anything tangible that way either. He didn’t know what John’s high school’s name was, though he wasn’t sure if he could do anything at all even if he had known that information. 

After finding nothing saying anything about John’s physical well-being, he resolved John must be ignoring him. He really must’ve just decided to cut off all contact. 

Graduation came and went, and now Dave had nowhere to go. He let his plans to move to Washington go down the drain and his hope with it. Just the thought of being near John without speaking with him drove a dagger into his ribs. 

He wished that dagger through his ribs was a real knife cutting through him.


	3. Chapter 3

“You… You’re…” Dave stammered, staring at John who stood in the middle of his living room. He must still be asleep. He must’ve hit his head on his way home. He must still be drunk. Either way, this couldn’t be real. 

“A ghost, yeah,” John said with a playful smile and shrugged. “I’m a ghost now.” He wiggled his arms and shaped his mouth like an ‘o’. 

“This isn’t funny,” Dave said weakly, too dumbfounded to snap at him. “This isn’t funny. This isn’t real.” He rubbed his hands through his hair and sat down on the couch. “How did you get in?”

“Duh, through the door.” John moved to sit down next to Dave, but changed his mind when Dave glared at him. “Well, without opening it. You have _no_ idea how disappointed I am that I don’t leave a slime trail when I pass through walls.”

Dave let out a sharp, unsmiling laugh, unable to process what was happening. “You’re not actually dead. You’re not here.” He really must be hallucinating now, his obsession must finally have pushed him over the edge.

John moved to sit down again, and this time Dave didn’t reject him. His voice and expression mellowed. “Dave. I am.”

Dave scoffed, rubbing his face and avoiding his eye contact. “No. You can’t be.”

“I _am_.” John reached a hand to Dave’s arm, and it ran right through his shirt sleeve, sending a chill up through his arm. “See? I can’t touch you.”

Dave met his eyes and just stared into them. There was an unnatural shimmer, a slight transparency in his irises. It was barely noticeable, but his blue color was faded ever so slightly. There was an unfamiliar glimmer in his eyes that unsettled him, that spoke of mortality. “You can’t be dead,” he whispered.

“I’m sorry,” he replied softly. “I didn’t realize you didn’t know. Thought you were just reacting to my being a ghost.”

Dave let out a frustrated and fearful sigh and studied John’s face, and it washed over him that he really didn’t look any older nor different than the last time he saw his face in person three years ago. He didn’t look much past the age of 18, quite literally. He had gone to visit John in Washington the weekend of his 18th birthday, he looked just like back then. He had to look away, he didn’t want to think about it. 

“When?” he managed to say. He wanted to reach and touch his face but resisted the temptation. First of all, that would be weird, wouldn’t it? They were just friends. Were they still friends? But he couldn’t physically touch him, and it would ruin him if he tried. 

“I think you already know, right?” 

Dave closed his eyes and rubbed them hard, fighting the emotions bubbling over. He didn’t want to think about this. His chest curled and twisted so much, restricting his lungs, wrenching his guts, all he wanted to do was go puke and knock himself out for the whole day. For the rest of the week. Try to forget about it, like he’d done this whole time. 

“I can’t do this right now,” Dave said with all his strength to not reveal any emotion and stood up from the couch. “I am too tired for this ghostly bullshit right now. I’m going back to bed.”

“Oh,” John stood up as well. “Okay. I’ll just, uh, wait here.”

Dave waved a hand dismissively, he had no idea how to react to this and if he did give in to a reaction, he didn’t know if he’d be able to stop crying. He quickly went through the kitchen drawers for his sleeping pills, hurriedly swallowed them with a dirty glass of water and closed the bedroom door behind him without looking back at John once.

Instead of moving toward the bed, he sunk to his knees against the door and suppressed sobs caught in his throat as he covered his face in his hands. John was _here_. All he had wanted for the last three years _and_ his worst nightmare were happening simultaneously. This couldn’t be true. He really must be as crazy as everybody believed him to be.

John was here speaking with him again, _and_ he was dead. He couldn’t accept it. He must still be dreaming; he must have rattled his nerves from overworking himself lately to keep himself busy and being surrounded by shadows every working hour. This must be a nightmare, and he’d wake soon. Though, the sobs knocking hard on his ribs, the sounds escaping his throat, and the tears streaming down his sore eyes all felt too real and contradicted his wishes. 

He tried his best to cry silently on the floor so John didn’t hear him, but the sobs were so hard to push down that he gave up and decided to lie under the covers, hoping that would muffle the sound. He was getting drowsier now too thanks to the pills, he didn’t want to fall asleep on the floor again. 

He woke up dazed and confused, momentarily forgetting both what had occurred hours ago and where he was. He slowly regained ability to move his limbs. He didn’t think he’d had much alcohol left in his system by the time he had taken the pills, but it must’ve had a bad effect on him either way.

He stumbled out of bed feeling sweaty and gross, moving out of the room to get to the bathroom to shower.

“Oh, you’re finally awake,” a voice said in a mock stern tone coming from the living room, stopping Dave dead in his tracks. His skin crawled and the chills juxtaposed with his sweat made him sick. He stepped out of the hallway and confronted the shape of John, who greeted him while standing in his living room, studying posters he had on the wall. The Texas sun burned through his windows, the light dancing in John’s dark hair. He looked just fine, _normal_ , if Dave only ignored that John didn’t cast a single shadow in the room. 

He pointed to a framed poster and smiled his dorky smile widely with an eyebrow raised. Dave’s heart stung. “ _Con Air_ , huh? Framed and everything. Didn’t think you’d admit to liking it until your deathbed.”

Dave didn’t reply, he couldn’t. Even if he wanted to, the words would get caught in his thick throat. 

“I’m going for a walk,” he forced out, and reached for his sunglasses that were on the floor. 

“I can come w—”

“Don’t follow me,” Dave snapped, harsher than he meant it to sound. He shifted his tone and worked to come up with a functional excuse that wasn’t just _if I look at you for any longer, I will lose my fucking mind_. “It’s daytime. If we talk, people will give me looks. They can’t hear your end, but they can hear me.”

“Oh, right, of course, sorry. I have just not had an opportunity to speak to anyone living since, well…” His voice fell dead. “I’ll stay here, then.”

“Right. Bye.” Dave quickly unlocked all his locks and jogged down the stairs in the cool stairway. Tears pressed behind his eyes but he pushed them back. He already looked disheveled and messed up, crying in public would just be the shit icing on his fucked-up cake. 

Outside, he went straight to the local park only about a block away from his apartment and sat down on a bench facing the big pond. This park was usually deserted on most times of the day, save some determined joggers and a few lingering shadows that usually didn’t bother him. He watched them wander past him, occupied with a life they still truly believed they lived. The sun hung in the clear sky, stubbornly trying to warm up Dave’s skin, but he barely felt it at all. 

He brought out his phone from his pocket in sudden realization he didn’t know what time it was. 04:31pm. Jesus fucking Christ, he had slept for a while. Most of the day was already gone. 

He stared into the deep water, the deep that had called his name so many times, and tried to clear his mind. He had to go back to his apartment and speak to John, but he wasn’t ready. He would never be ready. The more time had passed since their last conversation, the more Dave had dreaded the possibility that John would return. He had simultaneously yearned and wished for the very thing that brought him so much fear and anxiety; he didn’t want for the possibility to hear John had indeed left him on purpose, no matter how unlikely that would be to hear. Even now when he knew why John had stopped speaking to him, that old anxiety had a grip on him.

Some nights, he had _wished_ that John had died, if only as an explanation for his disappearance that didn’t sour their long friendship that had meant so much to him. That _still_ meant so much to him. The tears fought harder, and he wiped them away before they had the chance to go down his cheeks. He felt so horrible and evil for those emotions he had carried and harbored all these years. Here he had periodically been thinking terribly ill of John, all while John was buried underground somewhere in a cemetery in Washington. 


	4. Chapter 4

Dave let himself back into his apartment, cursing quietly when he realized he hadn’t locked behind him. John couldn’t do much against a robber. 

John sat on the couch, glancing around Dave’s place. 

“Wait. Have you just been sitting here in my apartment the whole time?” Dave asked as he took off his sunglasses. 

“Uh, yeah, pretty much,” John said, embarrassed. “I did go outside for a while when I realized you would be knocked out in your room for a while, but, yeah.” He wondered how he didn’t get immensely bored, and guessed being dead changed that for a person. 

John quickly met Dave’s eyes and just as quickly looked away. “I didn’t go in there, in case you worried about that.”

That made Dave crack a nervous laugh. “I didn’t worry about that, dude. You can look in my room if you want. You can walk through walls, I can’t stop you. Invade to your heart’s content.”

John chuckled too. “I didn’t want to invade your personal space in case you didn’t want me to, alright?”

Dave’s smile faltered and he cleared his throat. They had to talk about this, whether he wanted to or not. The questions chewed on his insides. 

“So, uh, John,” he began, his throat already closing, and he sat down on the couch. He didn’t want to confront this. At all. But he had to begin, or else he’d never be able to rest; his imagination would get the best of him. And who knew when he’d ever see John again? 

“How did you die?

John looked at his hands and stopped smiling. “Car accident.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. My dad and I – it, uh, it wasn’t instantaneous.”

“ _Fuck_. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.”

They sat in silence. Dave had more questions gnawing at him.

“Why haven’t I seen you until now?” he asked quietly. 

“I couldn’t find you,” John frowned. “By the time I became aware of what had happened, and what I was, and came to terms with it – which was maybe a year ago? – I made my way to your address, and when I got there you didn’t live there anymore.”

“Ah. You saw Bro?”

“Yeah. Man, he’s much weirder than I thought from what you told me.”

Dave’s tight throat surprised him by letting out a chuckle. “Ugh, yeah… I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you looked for me.”

“It’s fine,” John laughed. “I found you in the end. For a while, I thought you’d maybe moved to Seattle like we planned, but I couldn’t find you anywhere around campus, so soon after I decided to go to Houston to check.” He studied Dave. “Did you go?”

Dave swallowed. “No. I didn’t know what to do after you disappeared.”

“Did you start archaeology anyway? Here in Texas?”

“I did, but I dropped out roughly a year in,” Dave admitted, looking at his shoes. “I couldn’t focus on anything anymore, least of all my studies.”

“I’m sorry,” John said. “What do you do now, then?”

“I’m a DJ, for the most part.” He nodded at the bag laying limp on the floor. 

“Oh, cool! I can really imagine you’re great at it.” They sat in an awkward silence a while longer, Dave’s mind wandered to the old remix he’d worked on and how it was still incomplete and abandoned. Then John laughed quietly, “didn’t know you could see ghosts.”

Dave smiled wryly. “Didn’t know how to bring it up without sounding batshit insane.”

“Makes sense, though. I might not have believed you if you told me over text.”

Dave chuckled. “Yeah, meant to tell you, like, every time we saw each other at your house – I saw your Nanna _so_ many times – but I never found the right time… I’ve always been able to see them. I usually call them ‘shadows’.”

“Wow. That must be scary, right?”

“No,” Dave said instinctively, but corrected himself when he remembered who he was talking to. “Yes. Yeah.” He looked at his hands. “Sometimes it’s been terrifying.”

He stared out the window, the sun was about to set again; it wasn’t visible from the window any longer. He hadn’t eaten anything all day, but he didn’t feel particularly hungry. His already fleeting appetite had left him entirely.

“Did you get to go see _Con Air_ that day?” Dave asked, fidgeting with his hands, running out of things he could think to ask.

“Ugh, no, unfortunately,” John groaned, visibly upset over that fact, “the accident happened on our way there. We never made it to the theater.” His eyes betrayed his thoughts were far away. Dave suspected what he was thinking about.

“How’s your dad? Is he aware?”

“He’s alright, I think, and no, he’s not.” John frowned and sighed. “I’ve talked to him loads since the accident, but he doesn’t realize the accident happened. He thinks I’ve gone to visit you, he told me ‘about time you visited the Striders to return the favor’ before I left to find you,” he smiled. “He’s going through the motions back at our house even now, I believe. Haunting whoever bought the house after us, baking spectral Betty Crocker cakes.”

It must’ve been hard for him to leave his dad behind. Back when they had talked about college together, John always said he wanted to live not too far away from his dad, so he’d be able to easily visit him during holidays and whenever John felt homesick. They had settled on University of Washington for that reason. Thinking about this made his heart ache. John was dead now. He couldn’t even imagine how it must’ve been like for him to come to terms with being dead and give up on all the hopes and dreams he’d had for his future. Well, maybe he could imagine; he’d given up too. 

“I never got to know what it was you wanted to tell me.” John scratched his neck nervously. “After I, well, died, I tried to message you, countless times, but my computer would never log me in, and my phone was broken after the crash. It probably wouldn’t have logged me in if it worked either, when I think about it.”

Dave swallowed, tensing his jaw to try to compose himself. Well, no time was like the present. “I planned to confess my feelings for you,” he breathed without looking at him. 

John blinked. “Ah, haha.” He smiled widely to himself. “To be honest,” he said, his voice betraying he was tense, nervous and relieved at the same time. “I, I’ve been hoping that was it, actually. I felt the same. I still feel that way for you.” He hesitated, his eyes darting around as he thought, and he chuckled nervously, fidgeting with his shirt sleeve. “I get it if you don’t feel that way anymore. It’s been three years, after all. And you’re alive, I’m not.” 

Dave couldn’t do it anymore; he burst to tears despite himself. 

“John,” his voice broke, “I never stopped.”

John spun to face him, surprised by Dave’s intense burst of emotion. “What?”

Dave felt like he was coughing up his heart. “It hurt so much when you disappeared, my feelings—” he choked, the words stringing together incoherently. “What made it so much worse is,” he stopped for air, heaving his breath, “I never stopped being in love with you!”

“Oh my god, Dave, I—”

“Why did you have to die?” Dave cried into his hands. He desperately wanted to hold John, cry into his shoulder, feel his arms around him, but he couldn’t, and that physically hurt him. “ _Why did you have to die?_ ”

Dave sobbed as John could do not much else but watch. “You matter so much to me, and you _died_. I thought you had left me, stopped being my friend, but you _died_. I believed you hated me, that the only person I ever cared about had left me behind, moved on…” 

“I’d never hate you, Dave,” John’s voice wavered. “I never in the world would ever hate you.”

“I managed to keep going because I thought you were still out there,” Dave sobbed, mostly to himself at this point. “We could be together again. But you’ve been,” his voice stopped working, the sobs took over and choked any syllable before it reached his tongue. “Dead this whole time,” he managed to croak out, sinking off the couch onto the floor.

“Dave,” John said alarmed, his voice raised and reeking of anxiety, like he’d realized something. 

He had dreamt so long of them meeting again, reconciling. Falling in love. Build something together. Now that was confirmed to never happen, even in Dave’s wildest dreams of his own future. He could never have a life with John the way he had always wanted when John was dead. 

“I can’t do this, John,” he whispered. “I _can’t_.” 

He stood up from the floor, wobbly from strong emotion. He kept himself from feeling so often, it was physically overwhelming. He had to get out of there. He went for the door. 

“Dave! Don’t!” John called, running after him, reaching instinctively to stop him but his hand missed him.

Dave knew he would never be able to recover from this. No matter how many more years would pass and things about his life would change, the way he felt would remain the same. His thoughts and feelings would never leave him. The inability to ever touch him would haunt him a thousand times more than missing him already did. He didn’t think he could ever survive that.

He _knew_ he would never survive that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading! 
> 
> i forgot to say this in an earlier note, but my disappointment is immeasurable for how the _i don't wanna miss a thing/how do i live_ mashup doesn't exist. after thinking about it while writing this i literally can't get the idea out of my head, i will to learn how to and make it myself if i have to


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